Monthly Archives: July 2005

I have still been recovering all week from the big party last weekend. Aside from finishing Half-Blood Prince already Monday night and getting my party photos posted, I’ve done some cleaning, mostly gooey things like dishes and potion bottles, but I’ve been trying to let myself relax a bit as well. Unfortunately my cat hasn’t been as cooperative at letting me sleep through the night as she usually is – maybe it’s too hot for her as well? I have no air conditioning but I have a 2-story place, which is usually only a problem over here for a few days each summer, but this week has been a doozy. It’s hard to get motivated to do things when it’s so hot! Good think I live alone and my cat doesn’t care, since I don’t mind having a huge decoration mess around for awhile. I am leaving the stone walls and black ceiling up through Halloween to save myself time for that party (plus I like the effect!), so it’s a matter of taking the Hogwarts-specific stuff down and putting it away safely…plus I have to reorganize since I have two new HBP boxes now, so I’d like to put decor in those for storage vs. the boring normal boxes I had before. 2 OotP boxes, 2 HBP boxes…woohoo! 😉

In other news, we now have all our lodging settled for the hiking in Scotland + week in London trip are taking in September – hooray! Two hotels in Edinburgh and London, a lodge in Torridon, the Macdonald Hotel in Kinlochleven near Glencoe, and the Snooty Fox Country Inn near Carlisle/Lake Country. Gotta love staying at a place called “The Snooty Fox!” 😉 Since he has a spiffy digital SLR camera he bought last year before our choir tour, he’d like more practice taking landscape photos, and he’d never been to Yosemite, we had discussed a couple months ago to try taking a day to go after the Glacier Point road was open but before our trip. We finally had the chance this weekend, so we did. Ironically I realized that even though I have been to Yosemite in 1996, 1998, 2003 & earlier this year, this is the first time I’ve been to Yosemite with an American since 1993! 😛

Yosemite in July Gallery Album

and at Glacier Point

We took some cheese & cracker party leftovers and a fresh fruit salad for a picnic and drove the Briata (of course!), leaving Cupertino about 8:30am. We made it to the Big Oak Flat entrance around noon, to Tunnel View around 1:30, and up to Glacier Point for our picnic lunch about 2:30. It was hot, and I’d never been to Yosemite on a weekend, let alone in the summer, so it was much more packed with people than I had even seen! We still had fun, though. We left the valley after sunset about 9ish, making it to Oakdale by 11ish where we ate at Denny’s, then back to my place about 1:30am. Around 455 miles, with all but the first 80 miles with the top down! A very exhausting day, but a lot of fun and beautiful scenery. Today is hot again so I’m having difficulty wanting to move at all, let alone leave the spot on my couch where my fan is blowing on me, so I figured I might as well settle the Yosemite photos and update my blog… 😉 Maybe after it cools down I can do some more party cleaning…

Hope you all had a good weekend!

P.S. The iPhoto to Gallery plugin is SWEET! 😀

*sigh*

ARGH!

hilarious bits too of course…

How sad is it that you are jealous of fictional characters half your age for their love lives? 😉

Anyway, I won’t say anything more for now…my original guess for the HBP was wrong, but a co-worker called it, and in the beginning of reading the book I did start suspecting who it ended up being…cryptic enough for ya? 😉

Now I can finally get some much-needed sleep…only 4 hrs each night Friday & Saturday due to the party, then last night between cleaning & photos I read until midnight when my eyes could no longer stay open, but it was warm enough I had trouble sleeping, then the damn cat decided to be annoying starting at 5am, plus a full day of work…

On the plus side, my party photos are on my home gallery, along with those taken by some other party guests…

http://camera.britta.com/gallery/Year6

Good night!

The BBC is accepting comments from the general public and posting a sampling…a lot are just first-hand accounts from London, which are harrowing enough, but this one is especially well-said:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4661415.stm

Yesterday, we were annoyed with Londoners and English people. London won the games and Paris lost them. And today we wake up. We realise that these little fights between old friends are for spoilt children. We are all facing a huge challenge. We have all to fight terrorism. We are all Londoners today. We all feel sad and share the pain of the one who are suffering today. Do not worry my friends, we will be with you in this fight and we will win it.
– Julien, Paris, France

I woke up this morning to a blurb on the radio about bombings in London…what?!? I went downstairs to glean internet details, like where exactly, since Yahoo was thin on details, but the news.bbc.co.uk domain was obviously slammed since it wasn’t responding. I finally found details from the Guardian, which reassured me that the Londoner I know was probably safe, but I emailed him anyway. His friend lives “round the corner from a bus with no roof” but she’s okay and so are the rest of his friends at least. My heart goes out to everyone hurt by this, even the witnesses who saw such horrible things and will remember them forever.

So I started the day with the same ill feeling in my stomach as the Challenger explosion, Sept 11th, and Madrid…but now at work, this excerpt from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4659511.stm struck me as something to remember:

Mark Easton : King’s Cross : 1820 BST

But if this was the work of al-Qaeda trying to terrorise Londoners, my impression from King’s Cross is that they failed.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Lifestyle/Headlines/03AccentFOOD01070605.htm

Excerpt:

“If Hogwarts had Home Economics, then Britta Peterson would be the teacher. She’s with the Web site PotterParties.com, and knows a thing or two about the importance of setting the right mood.

“I go all out for my ‘Harry Potter’ parties, transforming my house into Hogwarts, complete with fake stone walls and Quidditch hoops in my backyard,” she said.

If that’s a bit too involved, she recommends using a plastic cauldron as a centerpiece, turning ordinary books into “spell books,” and having a few magic wands on hand. The Web site has a lengthy list of decorating ideas, complete with instructions. Go to www.potterparties.com for details.”

Especially funny since I’ve never taken a Home Ec class in my life! haha…! Yes, this was an “interview” via email, since he wrote to PotterParties.com about this article, and since he was asking about the party planning side, they suggested I reply to him.